Paint
by Joermungard
Summary: Jasper is a painter struggling with his military past - what he really needs is a muse. All Human, rated T just in case.
1. In the Park

**Disclaimer: I'm not Stephenie Meyer, I don't own any of the characters, and I'm definitely not making any money out of this. I'm just having some good-natured fun with her characters. **

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He sighed in frustration. Another pointless meeting, another polite refusal, another hour of his life wasted. Not that he'd expected the gallery to be interested anyways, they were too modernist for his style of painting. And too cheerful. Still didn't change the fact that he didn't have a show, hadn't had one in years. Scratch that. Had never had one. Nobody wanted to show dark, depressing pictures painted by a dark, depressed guy trying to get over his dark, depressing life. Which made everything more dark and depressing.

Whatever. He already knew what was coming next – he'd drown his sorrows in coffee, then dress his frustrations in red, grey and black acrylic, drink more coffee, strip the painting, start all over. Channel the emotions, create meaning from them, his shrink would have said, but this kind of fancy talk was exactly why he'd stopped going to her. He'd only gone because he'd been required to anyway, and now that he'd done his mandatory sessions, he was a free man.

He stared at the canvas, cup in hand. Of course, he could try painting something cheerful. Something a gallery would want to show, something that someone might actually buy. Looking at his collection of paints, it dawned on him that yellow, green, orange were the only shades completely untouched, never replaced – they were the exact same tubes he'd bought years ago when he'd gotten his first set of paint. Countless tubes of black, red, white littered the studio, but only one tube each of yellow, green, orange.

_You could just make a change. Force yourself to do something different for once._ He snorted. _Yeah right, like you haven't tried escaping before. Did it ever work? 'Course not. _

Then again, maybe today would be different. Hope springs eternally. He packed up yellow, green, orange, and some blues and reds for good measure, threw in a few brushes, grabbed a block of heavy paper. Left whites and blacks home on purpose, slung his bag over his shoulder, headed out to the park.

An hour later, he was sitting by the pond, looking out at playing children, smiling parents, swimming ducks. He knew it was a lovely day, saw the brilliant blue sky, could feel the good mood hanging in the air. But it didn't touch him. It never did. Not since he'd come back. Before the thoughts of what he'd come back from could take a hold of him, he fixed his eyes back on his block, started to trace the outlines of a family of three, father, mother, child, picknicking on a checkered blanket. The paintbrush seemed to take on a life of its own, doling out the lively colours, yellow sweater for the child, green grass all around, slices of oranges for all. No dark colours required.

But it didn't look right. It _wasn't_ right. The family before him were a photo out of a glossy magazine, the image of love, comfort, happiness. Yet the family on his painting was a ghoulish caricature of that picture, despite the lively hues. Something in the mother's smile (too many teeth), the father's look (too aware of the surroundings), the child's pose (ready to spring). They were all mocking him from the page, casting threatening shadows over the grass in the painting. He hurled the block away from himself and laid back into the grass, closing his eyes. The pool shivered slightly in the breeze, the leaves whispered "just give up on it already, the park ain't gonna fix you, cheerful colours ain't gonna fix you, nothing can fix you".

He groaned and threw his arm over his face, shutting out the sunlight and the sounds of happiness.

_Darkness. Darkness all around him. Too much darkness, too little sound... something was up. He signalled his men to move forwards, ghosting towards the rebel camp... then, hell. Thunder and lightning erupting from all around them. A trap. Of course a trap. He felt the ground vibrate from the gunfire, saw his comrades fall, mown down by the enemy._

Somebody yanked him out of the desert and back to the park. "You know, that is some twisted shit you've painted there. Why'd you make them all scary?" A voice made of silver bells and violins. Straight out of a dream.

He kept his eyes closed, he didn't want to ruin the dream. "Didn't mean to. Just happened."

"Well, it's good stuff. Twisted, but good" the bells chimed.

"Thanks. That's the first time anyone has said something nice about my painting." Why he kept his face hidden he didn't know – perhaps he didn't want the owner of that voice to see the landscape of scars that made up his features, or maybe he just didn't believe she was actually there.

"Anytime." A tinkling laugh, wind chimes mixed with a flute. "Maybe you've just had the wrong people look at your paintings. I'm Alice, by the way."

"Hey, Alice. I'm Jasper." he mumbled through his sleeve.

"Hey Jasper. I'll leave you to your thoughts then. Have a good day!" He pulled his arm off his face quickly, but not quickly enough. The girl with the bells-and-violins voice had already vanished between strollers and promenading couples, leaving him with nothing but a fleeting impression of spiky dark hair. Somebody liked his paintings. Somebody with the voice of a dream and whose face he'd never seen. She'd liked his painting and he hadn't even looked at her. _Alice._

He laid back onto the grass and closed his eyes again, trying to replay her voice in his head. Silver bells, violins, wind chimes. Frowning, he attempted imagining a face to go with the music that was her words, but all he got was a blurred shape surrounded by dark pixie hair. He silently berated himself for not looking at her face. She'd liked his painting. Nobody had ever liked his paintings, except Rosalie, but twin sisters didn't count. They were _supposed_ to be supportive.

A laughing child ran past him and drew him out of his reverie, reminding him of where he was. His painting utensils were still strewn around him, the twisted image of the family lying a little way off. The real family itself, he noticed, was gone, only a discarded napkin and his painting remaining as proof that they had ever been there. Surveying the painting again, he realised that she'd been right – in a twisted way, it _was_ good. It wasn't what he'd meant to achieve, but it was still good. Maybe he'd frame it and hang it up somewhere in his studio, as a reminder that he could paint something that didn't have any grey and black in it.

He went over to the pond and rinsed his paintbrush in it, then started putting his things back in his bag. The sun was just beginning to set, dipping everything into molten gold, intensifying the greens, making the pond sparkle. Before he knew it, he'd dumped the contents of his bag again and started sketching the landscape, just a few quick brushstrokes, pond, lawn, trees, a couple on a bench by the water. This time, it didn't look twisted and ghoulish – in fact, it didn't look much like his usual style at all, more like some crossover between Monet and van Gogh. Not bad at all. A bit unbalanced, though – the left half of the painting looked a little empty if you compared it with the right half that had the couple on it. Without even thinking about it, he dipped his brush into the red on his palette and dabbed a red sweater onto the left bank of the pond, followed by blue pants and short dark hair. Her face was turned away from him, towards the water, but he imagined that she was smiling. Much better. The balance of the composition was right now.

While he waited for the paint to dry he wondered if he'd ever see Alice again – then again, how would he, seeing that he'd never really_ seen_ her in the first place, just heard her voice? Even if he _did_ see her, he probably wouldn't _recognise_ her. Then again, maybe _she_ would recognise _him_, and, against all odds, come to talk to him. For what reason, he couldn't imagine – after all, they'd hardly said five sentences to each other, and he hadn't even been particularly pleasant. He should have made her laugh, then she might want to speak to him, on the off-chance that he ever met her again. He wasn't even really sure_ why_ he wanted to see her so badly. Perhaps simply because she'd liked his painting, or because he wanted to know what kind of a face went with her chiming voice.

Night was falling. He picked up his brushes, paints, and work, and headed back to his place. What a strange afternoon it had been – the painting that had twisted itself into something nightmarish, the second painting that had, strangely,_ not_ twisted into something nightmarish, and _her. Alice_.

_

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_**A/N: more chapters coming up very soon. This is just an appetizer, although I'm really not sure where I'm going with this just yet. I just know there's going to be more. **


	2. Invitation

The sound of the cup shattering was softer than he'd expected – more muted. Maybe it was because of the coffee that had still been in it when he threw it, or because the canvas had given slightly, like a rubber band, before stopping the mug in its trajectory and fragmenting it into tiny pieces. He watched the rivulets of brown running down the grey and red painting, examined the bits of red porcelain that had got stuck in the paint, and the larger pieces that lay strewn on the linoleum floor. Of course he knew it was dumb to thrown things. Childish and useless and he'd have to clean it up later. But at least he felt a little less pissed off now. He'd thought things were finally looking up after that day in the park – it had felt like a ray of hope, that sketch of the pond and the couple that wasn't dark or depressing or twisted, it had felt like maybe he'd be able to paint cheery things now, things that cheery people would buy at cheery galleries.

But nothing had changed. The two paintings from the park were hanging on his wall now, but instead of motivating him, they mocked him, taunted him. When he took up his brush now, all that came out of his brain were dark shapes against a red background, men fleeing the fire, men in overturned humvees, wounded men lying in pools of blood. Good men lying dead. Just like every single painting he'd painted these last three years since he'd come back, all he could paint were the nightmares turned flesh he'd experienced _back there_.

The only thing that was worse than the fact that nothing really had changed about his ability to paint was the fact that Alice's voice kept reverberating in his head and he had no way of finding her. He recognised the signs – he'd gotten obsessed with her in the week since he'd heard her voice, had stuck her on a pedestal for no good reason at all, except that she intrigued him. Stupid, stupid, stupid thing to do. If he ever saw her (like that was going to happen in the first place), he'd probably be disappointed anyways. Her voice wouldn't be as angelic as he remembered, her face wouldn't be as lovely as he imagined, and she probably wouldn't even recognise him in the first place. After all, he was just a stranger in a park that she'd talked to for about three minutes. They were both just strangers, and yet here he was, pining away for a girl that didn't even have a face in his mind.

He started picking up the shards of the cup and dumped them into the trash, then began mopping up the spilled liquid. Cursing lightly as he cut himself on a leftover shard, he lay down flat on the floor. Of course, he could have gone back to the park hoping to meet her. But every time he contemplated that possibility, he felt too pathetic to follow through with it, like a lovesick puppy. Then again, how much more pathetic could be possibly become? He already was a washed-up soldier who hung around all day trying to create art and only succeeding in shaping his nightmares onto canvas.

The phone ringing made him jump. He picked up without looking at the caller i.d., knowing only one person ever called him anyways.

"Hey Rose. 'S up?"

"Hey brother dearest. I was wondering whether you felt like stirring yourself out of your traditional languor and going out with me tonight. There's a costume party at the Scotch and Sofa."

Typical Rose, trying to get him out of the house. "You know I don't go out Rosie."

"Well, I thought you could make an exception because Emmett is busy and I promised to go and I don't want to go alone and you could wear a mask and nobody would realise it was you and then your image of the morose veteran who never leaves his studio won't be shattered" she reeled off, taking a large breath before continuing. "And it would make me really happy and who knows maybe you'll meet a muse that can amuse you and then you won't need to shut yourself up in your studio any more because you'll finally get happy again and paint happy pictures and sell stuff and become rich and married and never have nightmares any more and I would be eternally grateful if you just went out with me tonight." Jesus that girl could talk fast. She'd inherited the double dose of talking genes, leaving him the silent ones. He huffed.

"Is there any real point in trying to persuade you that I don't want to go?"

"No. I know you'll thank me for this later. I'll pick you up at eight?"

He gave up. "Fine. But you have to get me the costume."

"Yay!" he could practically hear her bouncing on the other end of the line. "I'll see you at eight."

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A/N - more stuff coming up, of course. Please leave me a review to tell me what you think - because I still only have a general idea of where I'm going with this, so I can always use the input.


	3. Costumes

**Usual disclaimers apply. Don't own anything, don't make any money out of this. Just harmless fun with Stephenie Meyer's characters. **

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"Rosalie Hale, you have _got _to be kidding me" he growled as he surveyed himself in the mirror a few hours later. Black breeches with white stockings and buckled shoes, followed by a white frilly shirt and a blue coat, and topped off with a tricorn adorned with a blue, red and white cockade – he had known it would be bad, but he had never suspected that his twin might actually be out to _torture_ him. She'd even tied his floppy hair into a little ponytail at the nape of his neck with a bit of leather.

"Jasper Hale, you _promised_. At least I didn't dress you as Louis XVI with a powdered wig."

"Yes, but Rosalie, be _serious_. Couldn't I have gone as something simple, I don't know, a chef or something?" he knew he was whining, but he couldn't help it. Nobody should be forced to do things like this.

"It's a _theme_ party. Eighteenth century. You can't dress up as a chef at an eighteenth century party. Now be a good little Jacobin and don't argue. You know it's no use anyway."

"Yes, well, _you've_ got it easy. You just have to wear a floaty white dress and a red cap, and won't have to struggle with freaking _heels_ on your shoes, because you're not a guy who never wears heels! What are you supposed to be anyway?"

"Duh, I'm Marianne! You know, the spirit of France, of freedom and justice? And I'll have you know that I _don't_ have it easy, because I'm wearing a damn corset under this, and I'd like to see you wearing one of these." She twirled and gave her hat a bit of a flick, and danced towards the door.

"What are you wearing a bloody corset for?" he asked. "Emmett's not going to be around to tear it off, you know" he added under his breath.

"Historical authenticity" she twittered. Then her voice turned hard. "Now let's go."

"You owe me, sister. You owe me big" he muttered as he slouched after her.

"Sure, sure. Now _let's go_!"

* * *

The good thing about the Scotch and Sofa was that it had deck chairs. Lots and lots of obscenely comfortable deck chairs, smothered in white cushions, with the best view of town. It was in one of those deck chairs that Jasper finally managed to find refuge, after having been forced to twirl Rosalie around the dance floor for what felt like three hours. He had to admit, it was kind of nice to be able to show off his beautiful sister, who gloried in the looks of other men as she waltzed through the room with him. They looked good together, which just added to Rose's pleasure at the arrangement, and since she kept buying him drinks, the night wasn't altogether as bad as he'd feared. But he was still glad she'd allowed him a break while she chatted with some friends, because costume or not, the heels of his buckled shoes were a pain in the ass.

So here he was, reclining in one of the luxurious deck chairs, and counting the lights on the bay, and playing Alice's voice in his head over and over again, as he'd done so often these last couple of days. Maybe it was because of this, because he was already hearing her voice in his head, that he didn't realise right away that her voice was _outside _his head too.

He nearly toppled out of his chair when someone touched his shoulder. "Hey sleeping beauty – am I interrupting something?"

"Alice! What are you doing here?" he spluttered._ Great job at being smooth, Jasper,_ a sarcastic voice whispered in his mind.

"Glad to see you remember me! Same thing you are, I guess – attending a party." The voice was so, _so_ much better than he remembered. The violins, the silver bells, the flute and the wind chime were altogether much more delicious to his brain than he could ever have imagined, and only now he realised how poor an imitation his imagination had provided him.

"What a great coincidence to meet you here. You look amazing." She did – at least, what he could see of her did. He'd imagined her taller, but now that he saw her, all he could see was perfection: her body was slender, the build of a dancer, and, although almost completely obscured by folds of black silk, it was obvious she had all the right curves in all the right places. Black pants, black shirt, black cape, black cane, black hat – and a black mask with a long, curving nose and spectacles. "What are you?" he blurted out.

The sound of her tinkling laugh, that laugh that he'd dreamed about so often, almost knocked him over backwards, like a hit of his own personal brand of ecstasy. "The Medico Della Peste – the plague doctor. It's not strictly speaking eighteenth century, but the bouncer let me in anyway. Guess I freaked him out a little so he let me pass... You don't look so bad yourself. I dig the tricorn."

"Thanks, I guess. My sister picked the costume and made me wear it." He wanted to see her face. No, he didn't want to – he _needed_ to see it, needed it like a drowning man needs the shore. _She'll think you're deranged_ the sarcastic little voice breathed in his ear. Faces... she'd never seen his face before either. "Hey... this may sound weird, but how did you recognise me? I remember that you didn't see my face that day."

She pointed to the tattoo on his wrist. "You don't see a lot of French revolutionaries wearing ink." His hand strayed towards his mark, or perhaps more accurately, it wanted to stray to her fingers, but decided that his tattoo was a safer place to rest. "I noticed it last week and recognised it. Tell me, what is a guy like you doing with a dog tag tattooed onto his arm?"

"A guy like me?"

"Yeah. A sensitive, painter kind of guy like you." _Sensitive?_ She thought he was sensitive? Well, he supposed he was, but how was she to know that after only three minutes of previous communication?

"I wasn't always a painter." Suddenly, he didn't want to say any more. If he told her what he'd been, she'd either turn away, or worse, ask questions. Where he'd been, what he'd done, how it'd been.

"You don't want to talk about it." A statement of fact. The bells didn't tinkle in this sentence – she'd heard the finality of his answer and had erased all the chiming hints of laughter from her voice. "It's ok, you know. Not wanting to talk about things with total strangers."

"You're not a stranger."

"Sweet." _Way to go Jasper, why don't you tell her right away you've been obsessing about her for the last week. _

Their silence was just beginning to become a little uncomfortable when Rosalie found them, slightly inebriated. "_There_ you are, little brother. I was looking for you. Do you wanna head home?"

"Sure, Rosie. Um, I guess I'll see you around, Alice... it was nice seeing you again." _Even though I still don't know what you do or what your face looks like or anything about you at all_, he added silently. "Maybe we'll get to talk again sometime."

She laughed, one of the delightful little laughs he'd come to obsess about, tinged with a hint of mystery. "I know we will. You'll see."

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A/N - as always, reviews and feedback are more than welcome, as well as ideas for upcoming chapters, if you have any. I'm just sort of sprouting this as I go, with just a vague idea of where I'm heading, so if you feel like making a suggestion of where I should go, throw in your three cents.


	4. Yellow

**A/N - Just a short one this time. More plot next time, I promise ;)**

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After he'd peeled Rose out of her corset and tucked her into his bed, he drifted over to his workspace. For a while, he just stared at the large canvas he'd set up, alternately focussing on the irregularities in the surface and on some distant point hidden behind it. His head felt insanely clear – the drinks that Rose had bought him earlier had vanished from his system the moment he'd heard Alice's voice. She said they'd see each other again. It had sounded like she wanted it, too.

Mechanically, he squeezed some greens and blues onto his palette and started painting the spot in the park where she'd first talked to him. She'd figured him out... she'd known what he needed to hear, had known when to stop asking questions, had known he needed to talk to her again. He wondered why she hadn't taken the mask off when she spoke to him – after all, she knew he'd never seen her face, either. Maybe she didn't want him to. Maybe she thought she was ugly, maybe she'd been in an accident and her face was disfigured, or she'd just been born with some blemish. He tried to imagine a disfigured face under the black paper-maché, but he couldn't. In the end, it didn't matter anyways, did it? Even if she was deformed in some way, who was he to criticise, with his body made of scars. Her voice made up for anything, at least in his mind. Perfection was boring – he thought he'd almost like her better if her face wasn't as angelic as her voice. But maybe she'd also just kept the mask on because she didn't want to ruin the impression or break character. Who knew. No point in trying to figure it out, really, he'd just have to ask her someday, when he saw her again.

He dabbed a bit of sunlight into the ripples of the pond and stepped back. A perfectly normal, perfectly _boring_ rendition of a park on a sunny afternoon. On the one hand, normal was good. Normal was awesome, actually, considering that most of the time, all he could paint were horror stories. But it was also desperately empty – void of twisted nightmares, but also void of any cheerfulness. He felt like banging his head into the walls or throwing things again – he _wanted_ to paint happy things, he was so tired of running circles in his head around the things he'd seen. More than anything, he wanted to be _done_ – done thinking about the past, done waking up at night, done with red, grey and black. But _something _held him back, and he wasn't sure _what_ – perhaps it was his own pathetic self.

A person, that would make the painting less empty. But the only person he really, really wanted to paint had been dressed all in black, the colour of his despair, of his failure. Well, she'd been dressed in black, but she hadn't felt black. She hadn't felt dark at all, in fact, she'd felt lively and happy and strangely excited to see him. Yellow, he realised, she'd felt yellow. The yellow was on his brush before he'd even thought about it, and a little while later, a yellow plague doctor was sprawling on the banks of the pond like it was the most natural thing in the world. He didn't care it was a strange picture, that it looked about as whacky as those melted watches by Dalí, it felt _right_. He'd seen her again, and she'd been yellow.

* * *

Rosalie padded into the kitchen just as he was finishing his second cup of coffee and flipping the French toast.

"Whoa, you cooked? You actually made food? _Breakfast_ food?" He just shrugged and smiled at her. "And you're smiling." He handed her a plate with the first batch of toast.

"Yes, Rosie, people smile sometimes. It happens." His face split into a grin at her flabbergasted expression. She grabbed a piece of the toast and sprinkled sugar over it, still staring at him.

"I know. It's just... I don't even know when I've last seen you smile. I think it was before you first deployed." She picked at her food, and he knew she was remembering the goodbye, and the state he'd been in when he returned. It hadn't been pretty.

"I haven't had a whole lot to smile about since then" he muttered, not really wanting to think about it and ruin his mood.

"So what are you smiling about now?"

"Right now? Your face. You should see it, you look as if someone had switched your powder puff for a rabbit. Completely dumbfounded." He tucked in before she could question him again, and she took the hint. For a while, they sat together in companionable silence, each wrapped up in their own thoughts.

* * *

Of course, she noticed the painting when she was picking up her things. She just stood in front of it for a few minutes, her hand half-extended towards the figure on the shore.

"It's lovely. So different from what you usually paint." Her finger lightly traced the shape of the plague doctor.

"Thanks."

She turned to face him. "Is that the girl you were talking to last night?"

"Yeah. Her name is Alice. I don't really know much else about her though, so you don't need to try and question me. I don't even know her face."

"Oh. Well, I'm glad you've met someone. It explains a lot." This was one of the moments where he was glad that they got along so well – she would have badgered him with questions if he'd been anyone else, but she knew better than to try and talk to him about his emotional life if he didn't want to. "I'm sorry if I kinda interrupted your moment back then. I was kind of drunk."

He almost laughed. "Don't worry about it, sister dear. I'm sure I'll see her again." And it was true. If Alice said so, he was sure it was true.


	5. Lost and Found

**A/N - sorry to have kept you guys waiting, but here comes. Hope you enjoy! And remember: reviews are love. **

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She had said they'd meet again, but had left him no clue as to when and where, or how to find her. Perhaps that was the whole point – that he wasn't supposed to _look_ for her, just to _find_ her, just like you're not supposed to look for love because it will come when you're not expecting it.

He threw himself into work, painting day and night, to bridge the time until she came back into his life with idealisations of her, technicolour _Medicos_ wandering through parks or lounging on deck chairs high on roofs overlooking oceans.

Finally, Rosalie put her foot down. "For fuck's sake, Jasper, I'm glad you're not painting those freakish soldier scenes any more, but I have to say these multicoloured plague doctors are seriously starting to creep me out. Look around your studio, man, you're drowning in masked people! Don't you think three months of that is enough?"

He gritted his teeth in response. "I haven't seen her again. So I can't think of anything else to paint."

She flopped down on the floor, exasperated. "I know, Jazz, but _seriously_. This isn't healthy. I mean, the severed limbs were bad enough, but this is bordering on obsessive. At least you _wanted_ to paint something different while you were stuck on war." She refused to budge under his glare. "Have you actually _tried_ to find her?"

"It doesn't work that way, Rose."

"Well, how _does_ it work? Because obviously this is _totally_ working, since you've seen her every day since that party and in fact she's sitting right next to you and inspiring you to create high art."

"I can't go _looking_ for her. It's not right."

"Then don't _look_ for her. Just get out of this goddamn studio every once in a while, because she sure as hell won't just waltz in here, since she doesn't even know your last name so she can't even look you up in a bloody phonebook!"

"It'll happen when the time is right, I know it is. Maybe it's just not time yet or something."

For a moment, she just stared at him. "Jasper Hale, if I didn't know better, I'd swear you're on drugs. 'When the time is right', honestly. You've been pining for that weird chick for months and you refuse to go find her because _the time isn't right_? Are you on some kind of new esoteric trip that I don't know anything about?"

"I know it's strange. I want to see her too, only... I don't know. It feels wrong to try and force it to happen."

She bounded to her feet, startling him. "All right then. _You're_ not going to force anything. _I'm_ going to force you. You're coming with me right now, we're going out." His jacket and keys were flying his way before he could protest, and the set of her mouth told him that resistance would have been futile in any case. And anyways, he knew she was right to some extent – Alice sure wasn't going to turn up here. He slipped into the coat and let himself be stuffed into Rose's red convertible.

"So where are we going, oh mighty kidnapperess?"

"Back to the source. Scotch and Sofa has some excellent coffee, you know." Inwardly, he sighed. Scotch and Sofa didn't seem like a good place to start – he'd seen her there already, it didn't feel like he'd see her twice in the same place. Then again, the logic was of course undeniable – if she'd been there once, she might be there another time.

It became a ritual for them. Two, three times a week, Rosalie would turn up at his apartment, force him to drop his paintbrush where he stood and haul him to another bar or coffee shop, sometimes dragging Emmett along on her quest to "get Jazz to snap out of it". Not that it was a bad thing, really. He knew he'd spent too much time cooped up with his paints, and it wasn't as if he didn't enjoy the company. When Emmett and Rose weren't busy making goggly eyes at each other, they were actually rather entertaining, especially when they tried to get him loosened up by getting him drunk, and only succeeded in getting each other inebriated instead.

But the basic problem remained – the weeks dragged on, he'd been to what seemed like every place in town that served drinks, and yet, Alice never materialised. Occasionally, Emmett wondered aloud whether Jasper hadn't just imagined her, or made her up so that it wouldn't seem like he couldn't get any girls. Sometimes, Jasper couldn't help but ask himself the same question. The more time passed, the more she seemed like a dream, and only the memory of the symphony that was her voice proved to him that she'd been real, she'd been there and she'd talked to him and she'd told him they'd meet again.

* * *

In the end, it was her who found him, not the other way around. Of course.

He'd just settled down at the bar of a coffeeshop, looking towards the windows, with a large cappuccino and his sketchbook, when a pair of cool hands laid themselves over his eyes. He jumped a little, as always when someone came at him from behind.

"Guess who?" Her pealing voice was hard to mistake after having constantly featured in his fantasies for the last few months. It made him relax instantly as he reached up and covered her tiny hands with his own. She was here, she was here, here, _here_! She was real and she was there and she was speaking to him and her skin was laying against his and it wasn't a dream.

"Alice." Being allowed to touch her and hearing her tinkling laugh after all the waiting would have been a reward in itself, but he was determined to see her face this time. She wouldn't deny him this, he knew it, if only, perhaps, because she did not know how vital it had become to him. She probably didn't even realise that he'd never known what she looked like.

"Very good, Jasper! Deadly accurate hearing. You may turn around now" she teased. He slid her hands off his face and turned slowly towards her, excited and apprehensive at the same time. For so long, she had featured in his dreams, asleep and awake, that he was almost afraid to finally see her face for the first time, although he wasn't sure why. He'd imagined her beautiful, ugly, average, inhuman, nondescript, perfect or blemished – whatever she really looked like, he must have played it out in his mind, no face of hers should really come as a shock. Finally, the movement was complete, and having kept his eyes closed to make the most of the moment, he opened them, to see her countenance and end all mystery.

It was like having been blind and seeing the sun. He felt as if all the air had been knocked out of him – his chest felt too tight, he couldn't breathe. His heart began to throw itself against his ribcage, as if it were trying to smash its way out of himself, towards her. He ached to stretch out his hand and touch her – but he didn't dare to, for fear that she might dissolve into smoke. She was beautiful – not, perhaps, in the conventional, lady's magazine way, but heartbreakingly beautiful to him. As he looked into her golden eyes, everything else fell away – the last few years, the pain, the nightmares, red, grey, and black – at that moment, he became who he had been_ before_, before _everything_. He could have painted a starry night right then and there out of coffee beans, milk and sugar, and put her in as the moon, or written a sonnet and put her in as Aphrodite, most revered goddess of love and beauty. His eyes drank in her skin, perfect pearly snow in winter sunlight, her hair, fertile earth on a lovely day in spring, her lips, ripe summer cherries waiting to be picked, her hands, falling leaves dancing in the autumn breeze.

She snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. "Jasper – you're staring at me." He blinked a few times and shook his head experimentally, trying to focus on her without going into a rapture at the shimmering amusement in her voice.

"I'm sorry. It's just... I never saw your face before. You're beautiful." She blushed a little, and he could have burst into song at the sheer loveliness of the blood rushing under her skin.

"Thanks, Jasper. You know, you kept me waiting a long time." It was his turn to feel the heat spreading in his cheeks, and he ducked his head slightly to hide it.

"I'm sorry, ma'am" he mumbled.

The End

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I know, I said I'd write more. Maybe I will, someday. But right now, I realised I kind of like it the way it is - don't worry though, my ideas for the future plot will turn up in new stories anyways ;)  
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